Morning Roundup, Sept. 20

The fatal stabbing of a Bowie State University student by her college roommate was a “tragic accident” that happened as suspect Alexis Simpson defended herself, defense attorneys said in court Monday. However, a Prince George’s County District judge denied the defense team’s request to release Ms. Simpson on bail, reports Andrea Noble of The Washington Times.

A 2-year-old was shot and killed Monday night in an apartment in the Oxon Hill area of Prince George’s County, police said. Investigators are still trying to determine how the shooting took place and whether it was accidentally self-inflicted. A 911 call was placed shortly before 8 p.m., reporting that the boy had been shot in the 6200 block of Oxon Hill Road, police said, according to The Washington Post. The child apparently grabbed the weapon and pulled the trigger, Fox 5 TV reports Tuesday morning.

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D.C. Council member Vincent B. Orange is proposing a package of ethics-reform bills that would impose term limits on officeholders while raising to $170,000 the salaries of city lawmakers who are already among the most highly paid in the nation. Mr. Orange proposed his “new deal for the District of Columbia” on Monday, a day before the council’s first legislative session since the summer recess. The at-large Democrat said his efforts will “start the conversation” on bold reforms, even if some of his ideas prove to be unpopular among his colleagues, reports The Times’ Tom Howell Jr.

FBI statistics show that the number of rapes reported in the District increased by nearly 25 percent last year. The FBI’s annual report on crime released on Monday shows that 187 forcible rapes were reported in 2010, up from 150 in 2009. By comparison, rape dropped 5 percent nationwide. D.C. police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump says the city’s 2010 rape figures are on par with past years. The report also states that violent crime nationwide dropped 6 percent in 2010, marking the fourth straight year-to-year decline. In the District, violent crime decreased by 1 percent. Property crime also decreased nationwide by 3 percent while in the District it rose 1 percent, according to the Associated Press.

If a man contacts you and says he is the Philadelphia Eagles’ third-string quarterback, be suspicious, according to NBC 4 TV. Someone is impersonating Vince Young in the Washington area, says the agency that represents the veteran NFL quarterback. “I heard that he has been taking [appearance] money, taking pictures with little kids at hospitals,” the real Vince Young said on Monday. “It’s been real sick.”

The city auditor has asked the D.C. Inspector General to investigate allegations of financial irregularities by the head of a citizen’s advisory council for the Metropolitan Police Department. Documents obtained by The Times accuse Robert V. Brannum, chairman of the 5th District Citizens Advisory Committee, of misusing the organization’s business checking account.

Prince George’s County voters will go to the polls today to choose the likely replacement for former County Council member Leslie E. Johnson. The county will hold special Democratic and Republican primaries for the District 6 council seat that Johnson, a Democrat, vacated July 31 after her guilty plea a month earlier to federal charges of witness- and evidence-tampering, reports David Hill of The Times. The winner of the Democratic primary will likely win the general election in October.

A former mechanical engineer who realized that her true calling was education is the 2011 D.C. Public Schools’ Teacher of the Year. “I think I’ve always sort of known I wanted to be a teacher at some point,” said Shira Fishman, a math teacher at McKinley Technology High School. “I always did well in math and science, so it made sense to do engineering … but there was always a pull in the back of my mind,” writes Meredith Somers of The Times.

The O’Malley administration is asking state regulators to reject Constellation Energy Group’s plan to sell itself to Chicago-based Exelon Corp. unless the companies provide greater assurance that the new owner can deliver reliable service to Maryland customers. The Maryland Energy Administration also raised concerns about the merged company’s exposure to the nuclear energy business, and said it should develop more than 10 times as much state-based renewable energy resources than Constellation and Exelon have promised, according to The Baltimore Sun.